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It's not a choice anyone wants to make, especially not in the middle of the night.

Allow a naked stranger who is begging for help into your home or leave him out in the cold?

You don't know who he is or what he intends to do once inside. Is this a trick? Is someone
chasing him?

You do know the 17-degree temperature is dangerously low for someone without clothes. He also
happens to be scratched and bleeding, although you probably can't tell that from inside the
house.

What to do?

People living on Covina Drive on the West Side were confronted with that dilemma just after
midnight on Monday morning. A naked man yelled to be let in to at least two houses, leaving bloody
smudges on the buildings.

No one let him in, but one man called 911. Police responded but couldn't find the naked man.
Neighbors found the man's body about 12 hours later in a nearby shed. He likely died of
hypothermia, the coroner has said.

Immediately, readers commenting on Dispatch.com began to debate the right thing to do.

Some criticized the West Side residents for not allowing the man in or even tossing him a
blanket. Others scolded those who passed judgment, saying it's easy to criticize in hindsight.

Of 46 readers who voted in a Dispatch.com poll by 9 last night, 54 percent said they would not
let the man in but would call police right away; 32 percent said they'd let him in and call police;
6 percent said they would let him in and try to figure out what he needed; and 4 percent said they
would ignore him altogether. Another 4 percent chose "other."

Clergy members and ethicists agree there's no easy answer.

"The Christlike thing to do is to help the helpless," said the Rev. Tim Lee of Hillcrest Baptist
Church on the Hilltop. "But at the same time, it's hard to say someone who didn't open their door
did the wrong thing. Who knows what (the man was) doing? (The residents) might be protecting
children inside."

The Bible teaches him to value all people, Lee said, but he'd have to prioritize the safety of
his four children over the needs of the stranger.

So he wouldn't open the door, but he might go out to see if he could help, he said.

Offering hospitality to a stranger is a key aspect of Judeo-Christian ethics, said the Rev. John
Edgar, pastor of United Methodist Church for All People on the South Side. The church runs a free
store and other services for the poor.

Edgar likes to think he would have let the man in - or at least given him a blanket and told him
the police were coming.

"If they're on our porch, we have some responsibility," he said.

Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you
clothed me."

But Christianity also teaches not to judge, Edgar said, so blaming the residents is the wrong
thing to do.

Western law tends to require that we avoid harming others but not that we actually help them,
said S.M. Amadae, a political-science professor who teaches human rights at Ohio State University.
She is a leader of the university's newly formed Center for Ethics and Human Values.

People usually can't be punished for neglecting to feed a starving person or rescue someone who
is drowning, she said. Americans hold sacred the freedoms to make decisions and protect
property.

Still, "morally, I think we try to encourage people to take that extra step," she said. In this
case, that might mean a blanket or a coat for the man because he was naked and clearly unarmed.

Denis Hoover, the Covina Drive resident who called 911 but didn't let the man in, did the right
thing, said Sgt. Rich Weiner, a Columbus police spokesman.

"You should never let anyone in the house," Weiner said. "Tell them you're calling 911."

Mary Jones, 66, of Whitehall, said she would have worried about whether someone was following
the naked man onto her porch.

As for the man himself, "the very least you could do is stay with him outside and give him a
blanket or something," she said. "You can't just ignore him."

Samantha Webb, 23, a graduate student at Ohio State, said she would not have let the man in if
she were home alone. A woman has to be extra careful, she said.

"I consider myself pretty ethical and willing to help and go the extra mile," she said, "but you
have to take yourself into consideration."